by Jaime Rush
His phone rang. Kasabian.
“You’re in. I told her you were desperate.”
“Nice. So I have to act desperately horny?”
Kasabian laughed, the bastard. “You’ve got to get the whole prostitute thing out of your head. I told her you’re a writer, and you’ve been suffering major writer’s block. You have a deadline, and you’re desperate for inspiration.”
“Ha-ha.”
“I’ll give you something to laugh about. You’ve got a couple of sex scenes you need help with because you’re a virgin and have no idea what actually goes on. That should give you something to talk about until Kye and I can get over there. We got stuck in a traffic jam, so we pulled off so Kye could run into a Starbucks. I’ll have to figure out another way to get to you, but it may be a while. You can start checking out the place. Maybe even find out if Mallory’s seen any kids.”
“This is getting better and better. So I have to ask her about sex. That won’t be awkward.”
“Buck up, my friend. You’ve been in tighter situations than this.”
Well, that was true. Hayden grunted and hung up. Great. Time to pose as a john. He wasn’t buying the inspiration thing for a second.
The security guard at the desk checked his ID, then summoned another guy, who escorted him to the twelfth floor. Hayden wanted to knock the guy out and start exploring the floors, but he was sure the guard manning the security cameras would put a stop to that soon enough.
“Muses have panic buttons all over their condos,” the escort said in a droll voice. “If I have to come up, prepare to be hurt very bad. You do not pressure, coerce, or threaten the Muse. No pictures or video. And you do not leave the residence on your own. When you are finished, I escort you back down again. Understand?”
“Perfectly. But thanks for explaining it so well.”
The guy’s eyes narrowed at Hayden’s sarcastic comment. “You ought to be grateful she’s seeing someone like you.”
“Like me? And what’s that, exactly?”
The elevator door opened, and the man pointed for Hayden to go first.
“You’re not coming in with me, are you?”
The guy ignored the question and pressed the doorbell. Pleasant chimes sounded on the inside. The door opened, and Hayden’s first thought was, damn, Mallory had a helper or chaperone. The woman at the door wore little makeup, and her long, dark brown hair wasn’t fluffed or arranged to be seductive. Her red jeans were tight enough to show toned legs and slim hips, but they didn’t scream sensuous or inspiring.
“Welcome, Hayden,” she said, giving the escort a polite nod before gesturing for Hayden to come in and closing the door.
Hayden took in the spacious condo, then the windows that showcased the city beyond. The walls, painted in shades of light rose and beige, were punctuated by original paintings by a Caido artist known as Callo. Little was known about him, other than that he was reclusive, insanely talented, and painted scenes of exquisite sensuality. Painful sensuality. A song he’d never heard before played on the stereo, something he’d categorize as soulful electronica.
“Would you like a drink?” the woman asked. Her glossy hair draped over the swells of her breasts, concealing what little the loose black top revealed. “Absinthe?”
“Please. Is Mallory here?” Maybe she’d had to run out, which would buy him more time before he had to pretend.
Her mouth quirked. “I’m Mallory.”
“Oh.” The word drew out of his mouth, a long vowel of embarrassment and surprise. “I was expecting…”
“Flowing gown? Rose petals in my hair?” She went to work setting two bell-shaped glasses on the granite counter of an incredible custom wet bar situated off to the side of the living room.
He couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Sorry to disappoint. This kind of first encounter is unusual, but Kasabian is very persuasive. Usually it would be more like a business meeting. We discuss your goals, expectations, that sort of thing. If I accept you as a client, we decide on the specifics.”
“Is that a euphemism for sex?”
Her beautiful face remained placid as she poured liquid over a sugar cube, but the shimmer in her eyes spoke of fire and not ice. “I do not have sex with my clients at their whim. It is always my choice to proceed in that direction, and I rarely do.” She handed him one of the glasses, bringing with her the scent of the anise. “Kasabian did tell you about the nature of what I do, didn’t he? And what I don’t.”
“Sure, of course. I don’t have, er, anything to offer. I understand that’s customary.”
“It’s fine. I don’t require a gift. That’s a very old custom.” She lifted her glass in a toast. “To your first time.” Their glasses touched. After taking a sip, her mouth curved in the slightest smile. “I’ll be gentle with you.”
Something tickled through his stomach. Okay, he took it back. She was provocative.
The song was the perfect backdrop for Mallory. The female singer was asking why he couldn’t like her like the other boys did. They stared at her, but she craved him.
“Interesting song,” he said. The syncopation of the bass line pulsed through his body.
“It’s ‘Crave You,’ by Flight Facilities. I like the Adventure Club dub mix.” She took another sip and swirled the liquid around in her mouth before swallowing. “So, Hayden, what is it that you want from me?”
He was annoyed to find the prickle of desire stampeding right down to his cock as his wayward mind supplied an answer or two. He trained his gaze behind her, to a picture frame that was turned away and out of view.
“Tell me why you do this.” He wandered over to the picture, turning it to see Mallory and a young girl on the beach. Both were covered in sand and grinning.
She followed him, taking the picture from his hand. The softness had left her eyes. She set the frame facedown with a clack. “Let’s focus on your writing.”
Hayden couldn’t miss the edge in her voice. “I’m just making conversation, getting to know you. As a writer, I’m interested in what motivates people.” He took in the things that probably weren’t expensive gifts: a shell necklace dangling from a statue, a collection of feathers in a tall, fluted glass, and a picture of dolphins breaking the surface all spoke of the real Mallory. “What moves you?”
“This is about you, not me.”
He plucked one of the feathers from the glass. “But if you’re my inspiration, it’s about you.”
“Only as it pertains to you.” Her fingers twitched as she eyed the feather in his hand. He liked ruffling her placid exterior. He tipped his chin toward the picture. “Who’s the girl? Your daughter?”
Mallory’s cheeks flamed hot. “My niece. And that’s all I’m saying about her.”
He sauntered over to one of the paintings, a male angel kneeling before a seated female angel, his face buried in her upturned hands. Her long, dark hair spilled down over his bowed back, catching the light coming from a window.
Hayden couldn’t keep from feeling pulled into the scene. She stepped up beside him, her gaze on the painting, too. Her eyes softened and shimmered. It moved her, even though she saw it all the time. His gaze went back to the woman in the painting, and it hit him. “That’s you.” She looked so beautiful and innocent, it almost hurt.
She merely shrugged. “I pose for him sometimes.”
She obviously inspired the artist to the greatest of heights. Every shadow, every wash of light over skin and hair, perfection.
Hayden kept his gaze on the innocent version of Mallory. “What do you think this scene is about? Supplication?”
“It depends on my mood. Sometimes I think he’s begging her to love him back. Other times I think he’s bidding her goodbye.”
He obviously did feel inspired in her presence, or at least his mouth did, because he had no intention of voicing the question that popped into his head: “Have you ever begged someone to love you back?” He met her gaze, at
the same moment the woman on the stereo sang, “I crave you.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth for just a second before she turned back to the painting. “Kasabian said you have writer’s block. Let’s talk about that.”
“All right. I’m writing a story about a Muse who falls in love with one of her clients. So, of course, I need to know what motivates a woman like you. What moves you.”
She aimed an irritated look at him and opened her mouth to no doubt tell him off. The phone rang, silencing her. Kasabian.
Chapter 14
We’re going to see a Caido hooker?” Kye traced her finger along the stitching on the seat of Kasabian’s Lotus.
Kasabian made a turn toward the ocean. “She’s not a hooker; she’s a Muse. Didn’t you hear what I said? Muse, for their ability to inspire. Mallory is a professional, as dedicated to her craft as you are to yours. She stays unemotionally involved for the same reasons you do.”
Yeah, and look how that turned out. “I guess I got hung up on the ‘inspire with sensuality’ part. I, of all people, shouldn’t judge. I know how folks misconstrue the word sensuality for sex.” She wanted to pretend she didn’t want to know, but the words “Have you been, uh, inspired by her?” came out.
“I did not go to her as a client, no. We became friends.” He shrugged, which meant And more, but he was too nice to say.
She wasn’t nice. “Can you give me a definition of ‘friends’? Yes, I’m being nosy.”
His eyebrows raised. “Muses can take lovers, but they aren’t allowed to get emotionally involved or married. It has nothing to do with their abilities being impaired, like you, but more about their obligations to Muse-hood. My word, not hers. We were hanging out a little too much. She said she was starting to have feelings, and we backed off. That was about five years ago.”
“She fell in love with you.” Oh, yeah, Kye was liking this woman less and less.
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “We have lunch once in a while, and that’s it.”
Kye hated to admit it, but Mallory was like her in some ways. Helping people with their issues, staying emotionally uninvolved for fear of losing her career. Damn, she wanted to dislike her on principle. Not for what she did, but for her history with Kasabian.
“Do you visit other Muses then?” She gave him a stern look. “And don’t say a word about me being jealous. I’m just…curious.”
He gave her a sly smile. “Of course you are. For the record, I haven’t had empty, meaningless sex in a long time. It was easier to not think about that aspect of my life.”
Was easier. Her ego was eating up the fact that he was obsessed with her, that she was the one who’d awakened that part of him. Bad ego. Bad, bad ego.
She sank into the memory of his hand squeezing her breast and skimming her skin, the way her body had come to life beneath his touch. He had awakened a savage beast in her, too, though hers wasn’t the Dragon kind.
Those thoughts sparked the memory of him pinning her against the wall. You are mine, he’d growled, and some part of her had answered, Yes, I am.
Holy Zensu, what was happening to her? Kye stopped the thoughts before he could pick them up through their bond. Puppies. Babies. Cleaning the litter box, Vlad supervising as always. Anything to divert her attention.
“Kye,” he said on a groan, “you’re killing me.”
Too late. “Sorry, my thoughts tend to run away from me sometimes. What do you pick up exactly?” Please, not images or specifics.
“Your desire. Like you’re getting aroused by the idea of meaningless sex.”
Yeah, you keep thinking it’s that. “But I thought desire wasn’t painful when it came from me because of the bond.”
He pulled into the parking lot of a huge high-rise building and found a visitor’s parking space. His fingers tightened over the shifter as he pinned her with a look of heat and agony. “It’s not the same kind of pain. It’s more like…mass frustration. Because I can have it, and I can’t have it.”
Kye understood too well. She shoved back all those thoughts. It was easy to quell the desire when she was about to face a woman who’d fallen in love with him. It shouldn’t matter at all. But it did.
Kasabian phoned Hayden. “How’s it going?”
“I think it might help if you come over. Us writer types, we’re a little awkward socially. At least for me, it’s easier to talk to my characters than a…beautiful woman.” His voice got a little fainter. “Mallory, is it all right if Kasabian comes up? He’s in the neighborhood.”
“Yes,” she said from a short distance away. “Please, have him come up.”
Kasabian chuckled as he disconnected. “Hayden’s playing his role well, I think. Maybe too well.”
“Or she’s just eager to see you,” Kye said, getting out of the car.
Kasabian looked at her from across the roof as he got out. “Not that you’re jealous or anything.”
She narrowed her eyes, but what could she say? This was a foreign feeling. She’d never had anyone to be jealous over.
Mallory had already notified the man behind the security desk, so within a minute they were being escorted to the elevator. A few seconds later, a woman who looked nothing like Kye expected answered the door. Not seductive and overly made up, but clean and fresh, like the girl next door. If that girl were ethereally stunning.
Mallory’s tense expression immediately melted, and she hugged Kasabian. For a moment her eyes squeezed shut. She seemed to reluctantly let go and invited them in. Kasabian rested his hand in the middle of Kye’s back as he made introductions. It felt faintly proprietary, and a part of her liked that. Mine, echoed in her mind again. Her voice or his, flowing through their connection?
Mallory took the two of them in with even more curiosity but was too polite to voice the questions that were on her face. Kye wondered what Mallory picked up from her. Mallory focused on Kasabian. “I’m not sure your friend is ready to do this.” She gave Hayden a backward glance.
“He’s not.” Kasabian led Mallory to her sofa by the hand, sitting down on the arm once she was settled. “I’m sorry to deceive you, but this isn’t about creative inspiration.”
Mallory almost looked relieved, but then she turned to Hayden. “So all your harassment was what? A way to pass the time?”
Kasabian gave Hayden a stern look. “You were harassing her?”
Hayden shrugged. “I was probing her. I mean, prodding. I was just asking her some questions. Yeah, to pass the time.” But he looked a bit flustered.
Mallory turned her now irritated expression to Kasabian. “What the hell is going on?”
He pulled out the picture of Jonathan. “Have you seen this boy in the Tower?”
Mallory studied the picture. “Cute kid, but no. I rarely see children here.”
“Who owns the black Hummer?”
“Kasabian, you know the identity of those who live here is sacrosanct. What is this about?”
He tapped the picture. “Whoever owns that Hummer has this kid. And he shouldn’t.”
Compassion glittered in her eyes. “Has he been kidnapped?”
“In a manner of speaking. He’s being used in a program that at least one member of the Concilium is sanctioning. I don’t know who, so we can’t go to the authorities.” He settled his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t want to drag you into this. If it causes any trouble, tell them I tricked you, that we forced the information out of you, whatever you have to say. But I need the name and the floor he lives on or this kid dies.”
“You’re serious?” Mallory asked.
“Very.”
“Richard Talbot owns the Hummer. He lives on the eighteenth floor. I don’t know much about him, other than he’s an arrogant ass and a very old Caido. He was trying to get me to work with his son, Kevin, who’s Arrogant Ass, Junior.”
Kasabian planted a kiss on her forehead. “Thank you.” He opened the French doors leading out to her balcony and went out, Hayden right behind. They seem
ed to be sizing up the distance between balconies.
Mallory leaned up on tiptoe, balancing herself by putting her hands on Kasabian’s arm, and whispered, “You are not going to scale six floors.”
There was no easy way to get from one floor to the next, and the thought of them trying tightened Kye’s stomach.
“And you can’t Leap either,” Mallory added. “There are barriers all over the building. You’d be shot down the moment you were spotted. These old Caidos have awesome powers. A few years ago, some guy tried to break in.” She grimaced. “It wasn’t pretty.”
Kye waved them inside, and once the doors were closed, said, “We need to find out if Jonathan’s in there first. I can send a scry orb up to look in the windows.”
Kasabian and Mallory looked at her with puzzled expressions.
“It’s a spy orb, a tiny thing that looks like a bug unless you know what you’re looking at.”
“Great idea,” Kasabian said, looping his arm around her and pulling her close for a moment. “This is why I brought her,” he said to the others. “She’s brilliant.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. As if you had a choice.
Kye held out her hand, palm up. “It’s been forever since I’ve made one. It’s one of the first bits of magick we learn. Then we discover it’s intrusive to, say, spy on your best friend’s conversations or your parents when you think they’re Christmas shopping.” She shuddered at the memory of catching her father stuffing more than the stockings.
Hayden said, “The Deuces in the Guard use them a lot. Sometimes they really come in handy.”
Mallory’s mouth dropped open. “You’re with the Guard?”
Hayden’s shoulders widened just a bit, his pride showing. “Vega.”
